Reassurance

This article from The Times is an old one, but a friend has just drawn my attention to it and I've found it interesting. I keep meaning to read Margot Sunderland's books on child mental health and her recent research on cortisol levels in babies and the damage this can do, but so far have only got round to reading articles about her views. I kept nodding as I read this one about the value of co-sleeping, and how current UK culture and health policy actually goes *against* much of the available evidence.

Meeting with MP

This afternoon a home educating friend and I met with our local MP to corner him about the Badman Review. I think it went as well as could be expected really. He had at least *heard* of home education before and did not need to be told the very basics. He even didn't ask about socialising or socialisation - hooray!
It seems he is already involved in putting together some kind of enquiry into the Government's current obsession with safeguarding and agreed that this had gone much too far. I think he was kind of on our side, but not for our reasons. He wants to oppose the Government on this because he has a typical Tory antipathy to 'nanny state' type legislation, and also I think to try and put one in the eye for the Government - but to some extent his agenda doesn't really matter as long as he's fighting to opose this for us.
However, he didn't seem very positive that this opposition would work. He seemed quite resigned to the fact that these proposals will be implemented, which was rather a depressing prospect.
We made all the points we had meant to - pointing out that safeguarding was a much more relevant issue within schools than within Home Ed, and that parental responsibility for child welfare still lay with parents, not with the Government. We highlighted the major problems with the report - the right of access and the interviewing children alone - and the current lack of training of EWOs and how this would only get worse if their role was extended without further training. At the end we left him with a big wodge of stuff to read - the stats, the points, the arguments - everything put together as the 'meeting an MP' pack by the Badman Review Action Group.
Will it do any good? I really don't know. He promised to keep us informed, and I'll keep corresponding with him to keep it in the forefront of his mind. I'm glad we met with him, at least we've done the best we could.

Idle opinion

A timely and interesting article by Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson in The Telegraph pointing out that home education is an entirely sensible option and that Ed Balls is talking balls and that Graham Badman is, ahem, a bad man. Gosh, the people involved in this review could almost have been written by Dickens in the aptness of their names for their current roles. Anyway, due to this article, I have forgiven Tom Hodgkinson for having written books which I wanted to have written myself but which nobody would have published if I had, given that he is the editor of The Idler and I am a Nobody.

It feels really good...

... to eat our own produce for tea! So far, we've had strawberries for pudding, a lasagne made with our own onions and our own courgettes, had roast potatoes which were our own potatoes with our own rosemary. I now have 2 strings of onions hanging up in the kitchen (although the first string is much depleted as we use onions so much. I think I'll have to plant even more next year now that I've worked out how to dry and store them properly!) and another lot of onions that I'm drying to dry out before I hang. Though the rain the last few days has somewhat scuppered me.

It has just been announced that our town is starting its own Transition Movement, which is great and something I had been hoping for. So, even though I am somewhat busy at the moment with setting up the Home Ed Group, doing my course, the allotment (not to mention the kids), I *have* to get involved. I totally think the Transition Towns things is a good idea, even though I'm not sure how exactly I can help. Maybe we'll become another Totnes with our own town 'money' and a plethora of locally-sourced food. Ah, I can dream!

Taken the plunge!

So, after much soul-searching, research, asking people and meditating on the question, I have decided what I'm going to train as and have enrolled on the course. And what is it? Life coaching. Despite my misgivings at the California-esque, airy-fairy nature of it, it is what seemed right and what fits my skills the best. It also fits in well with some of my previous qualifications (nice to know I wasn't utterly wasting my time) such as reiki, NLP and Listening Skills. Once I'm qualified, I'm intending to set up my own practice and specialise in low-ish cost coaching for people who really need it, such as new parents, people who've been made redundant, those who want to simplify/downshift their lives. I'm not interested in business or executive coaching - I want to do purely personal coaching helping empower people to take control of their own lives and be happier. I *know* that sounds desperately new age, but I want to do it in a common sense and down-to-earth way. I know it'll take a fair while to build up a practice and will entail some self-promotion, which I'm not good at, but I think I'll enjoy the course (having spent ages researching courses) and also the work. In a few months, I may need willing victims to practise on, ahem, I mean, I'll be offering free, quality, coaching to people to build up my learning hours. I'm cautiously optimistic. It feels right, deep down. That's not to say that it will all just fall into place without any further hard work, but hopefully, I'm on the right track.

Double success

Two very good things today. Firstly, we had the first meeting of our local Home Ed Group in our new hall home and it was a resounding success! Loads of families there and everyone enjoying themselves. We easily made enough money to cover the cost of the hall and the drinks supplies, and everyone was very generous with bringing bits and bobs to add to our resources. Now we're already starting to think bigger!

And the second thing is that I have another article published in The Mother magazine. If you are a subscriber, check it out, it's the article about the Highly Sensitive Family.

Heat

I hate hate hate this weather. It's too hot, I'm uncomfortable and grouchy, the kids are uncomfortable and grouchy, none of us can sleep, as soon as we go outside everyone gets even more grumpy and fed-up so we are staying inside the house as much as possible - which is mad in the summer! Plus everyone's sneezing constantly. I'm all for warm, sunny days but anything over 26C is too much for us here and it is that in the house in the shade today. Walking to the station along the hot pavements reflecting back the heat and sitting on stuffy trains is torture in this weather, and don;t get me started on going shopping this morning *shudder*. And I'm going to have to cycle to the allotment every day after tea to water it as it's so dry. Just another job to add to the mix. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!! Make it stop.